2014 World Almanac: Venerable publishing tradition in a digital world

It’s an all-in-one compendium, featuring news, history, sports, politics. But the newly published 2014 edition of the World Almanac and Book of Facts faces competition unknown for much of its 146-year publication history: The Internet.

But don’t write it off yet. The book still has some advantages over the Internet, said senior editor Sarah Janssen.

“It’s really easy to just have it on your desk or your laptop and not have to look at your laptop or mobile device and get distracted,” she said.

But the book has the distraction factor working in its favor, too.

“There’s also something to the serendipitous factor have looking through the book,” she said. “You will find something interesting on whatever random page you look at.”

The 1,008-page book doesn’t have the infinite space available that the Internet does, but Janssen said that’s forced the editorial team to make smart choices.

“It does force you to be disciplined about the choices you make about (what to include),” she said. “It’s basically a process of winnowing and determining which sources are the most authoritative.”

More than a third of the book is brand new each year, Janssen said.

This year, the book also includes sections on marriage — both a discussion of same-sex marriage and the demographics of marriage; firearms and firearms-related crime statistics; and statistics on how Americans are using technology.

Ray Wang, dean of the University Library at Cal Poly Pomona, is skeptical about the future for the almanac and, in fact, all printed books.

“What I’ve been reading is on my iPhone, on my Kindle app,” he said. “It pains me to even say this, these days, (but) I think the days for printed material are numbered.”

Books do have one area where they’re unequaled, though, he said: as archival works.

“We have yet to find one delivery mechanism that can go back 20 years to read what was in digital form 20 years ago,” Wang said. “In terms of convenience, in terms of timeliness, in terms of completeness, in terms of accessing it at a moment’s notice, you just can’t beat it.”

The library buys nearly $100,000 in books annually, but more and more of that is spent on e-books, Wang said.

About one-third of the books in the university library haven’t been used in the past decade, according to consultants hired by Cal Poly Pomona.

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“We have a record number of students coming (to the library) — about 10,000 a day — but they are there for other purposes,” Wang said. “They’re there reading digital stuff, they’re there doing social networking, they’re there to participate in study groups.”

But the World Almanac is getting into that game as well. For the past two years, the book has been available as an e-book for the Kindle, Nook and other platforms.

“That’s something that people like, just because it’s more portable,” Janssen said. “It’s something that took us a while to get right, quite frankly, because there’s so many graphics and tables, but it’s something to be really excited about.”

Still, she said, the book version isn’t likely to go away any time soon.

“I hear from older Americans, I hear from students, I hear from teachers and librarians ... ‘I got my first copy of the World Almanac when I was 8 or 9 years old along with a ‘Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?’ video game.”